PAULINE LETTERS PROF. CHÁVEZ INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON PAUL S BACKGROUND

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1 PAULINE LETTERS PROF. CHÁVEZ INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON PAUL S BACKGROUND Who was Paul of Tarsus? Paul was a Hellenized Jew from the Diaspora who had been a zealous Pharisee. As such, he shows great acquaintance with the Scriptures (our Old Testament), their interpretation, and Jewish tradition. It is difficult to determine whether his Pharisaic background prepared him beyond this knowledge for the specific mission he was to fulfill, that of being the Apostle of/to the Gentiles (Rom 11:13; Gal 2:8). 1 The Pharisees were certainly anti-revolutionary (unlike the Zealots), and their eschatology (and thus messianism) was moderate. 2 They opposed the Jewish revolts, which were fed by apocalyptic hopes of God s final intervention in the world in order to establish his kingdom and submit the oppressive Gentiles. Christians, conversely, are born out of an apocalyptic movement. Furthermore, Hellenistic Judaism, insofar as it can be distinguished from Palestinian Judaism, was much less eschatologically and apocalyptically oriented. 3 The Pharisees great contribution to Christianity (and to Paul) 1 Present state of knowledge regarding the Pharisees may be summed up by the first thing ANTHONY SALDARINI states in his fine article on the Pharisees in Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York 1992) V , Recent research on the Pharisees has paradoxically made them and their role in Palestinian society more obscure and difficult to describe. 2 If the Pharisees are called a sect, they are of the reformist type which seeks gradual, divinely revealed alterations in the world; SALDARINI, Anchor Bible Dictionary V 301. The great scholar FRANK MOORE CROSS, in The Ancient Library of Qumran (Minneapolis ) 66 (fn. 3), states that In no case can the Pharisees. much less the Sadducees, be called apocalyptists, and by no stretch of the imagination can their associations be said to be the Sitz im Leben of an apocalyptic literature. However, in Frank Moore Cross: conversations with a Bible scholar (HERSHEL SHANKS, ed.) (Washington, D.C. 1994) 155, he admits that The apocalyptic movement was particularly powerful and for a period of time was taken up by elements of the Sadducees (the Essenes) and by many of the Pharisees, who included Daniel in their canon. Pharisees in general were quite accommodating to Gentile rulers, as long as their religion was not compromised. EMIL SCHÜRER, The history of the Jewish People in the age of Jesus Christ. vol. II (a new English edition, revised and edited by G. Vermes, F. Millar and M. Black) (Edinburgh 1979), 395, points out, however, Pharisaic influence on Palestinian revolutionary trends in the first century. In his now classic but in parts outdated Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (London ), W.D. DAVIES states that apocalyptic was by no means alien to Pharisaic Judaism (10), which did not disown it until the first Jewish revolt in In 9-13, he makes two noteworthy points in reference to Paul: Paul s zeal for the Law seems unusual in Diaspora Judaism (i.e., is more Palestinian), and his pessimism regarding the dominion of sin is of the sort present in 4 Ezra, a Jewish apocalyptic work from the late first century C.E. which shares some features of Pauline theology. JOHN J. COLLINS, The Apocalyptic Imagination. An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature (Grand Rapids Cambridge 1984, ), 211, however, notes that 4 Ezra s conceptions are generally atypical of rabbinic literature, and its perception of human inability to satisfy the law is closer to Paul s teaching in Romans than to the typical attitudes of the Rabbis. 3 Representative of Hellenistic Judaism is Philo of Alexandria, roughly contemporaneous with Paul. As a follower of Platonism who interprets Scripture allegorically, for him earthly transitoriness is the shadow and copy of the heavenly reality, HELMUT KOESTER, Introduction to the New Testament. volume two: History and Literature of Early Christianity (Philadelphia 1982), 273; see C.K. BARRETT, Paul. An Introduction to His Thought (Louisville 1994), 112. In Introduction to the New Testament. volume one: History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age (Philadelphia 1982), , Koester notes that eschatology is mostly missing in Philo, though not completely; the blessings of the end of Deut will come when people convert, and their persecutors will fall under a curse. Cf. JARLE BEKKEN, Paul s Use of Deut 30,12-14 in Jewish Context. Some Observations, in The New Testament and Hellenistic Judaism (P. Borgen S. Giversen, eds.) (Aarhus, Denmark Peabody, MA 1995) For a possible example of Jewish Hellenistic apocalyptic eschatology, see 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse of) Enoch, though much is uncertain about this work. The 3 (Greek Apocalypse of) Baruch, often dated to the first two 1

2 was their belief in resurrection. 4 The great stumbling block posed by Pharisaism to Christianity was its exclusivism (as opposed to universalism) and attempt to rigorously apply the Jewish purity laws to all Jews. Gentiles and ritually unclean persons were anathema to Pharisees. 5 The issue of apocalyptic is of great importance because, as reading Soards and the other material assigned indicates, in order to understand Paul we must understand the apocalyptic world-view. 6 It is an attitude of faith-seeking-understanding (i.e., a centuries after Christ, is noteworthy for its lack of eschatological orientation. MARTIN HENGEL, Judaism and Hellenism. Studies in their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period, vol. I (English Translation; London 1974), 176, blames the assimilation into Hellenism of the Jewish upper classes on a non-eschatological and increasingly aimless attitude, but notes in 186 that Jewish apocalyptic spread to the Diaspora, but always as a reaction to a type of assimilation to Hellenism which was viewed as apostasy (180). It is also important to note that there was no such thing as standard Hellenistic Judaism; NIKOLAUS WALTER, Hellenistic Jews of the Diaspora, in The New Testament and Hellenistic Judaism, 41. Hellenism had made great inroads even in Jerusalem, and Palestine is thought to have been bilingual (Aramaic and Greek). Note the Greek synagogues in Jerusalem (e.g., Acts 6:9); see DAVIES, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 6. Soon-to-be-published is Paul Beyond the Judaism/Hellenism Divide (TROELS ENGBERG-PEDERSEN, ed.) (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, 2001). Furthermore, HENGEL, Judaism and Hellenism, , notes pervasive Hellenistic and other influences on Jewish apocalyptic throughout. Further obscuring things is the fact that we know of only two Diaspora Pharisees, Paul and Josephus; see MARTIN GOODMAN, Diaspora Reactions to the Destruction of the Temple, in Jews and Christians. The Parting of the Ways A.D. 70 to 135 (James D.G. Dunn, editor) (English Translation Grand Rapids Cambridge 1999), 29; on Paul s possible training in Jerusalem, see PETER STUHLMACHER, The Understanding of Christ in the Pauline School: A Sketch, in Jews and Christians, Although the Pharisees rejected the claims made for Jesus, it was their tenacious belief in eternal life and resurrection which had opened the hearts and minds of Jesus disciples to the credibility of their claim that Jesus had risen from the dead. Resurrection was not an impossibility; it was the chief cornerstone of the Pharisaic faith; ELLIS RIVKIN, article on the Pharisees in the Interpreter s Dictionary of the Bible. Supplementary Volume (Nashville 1976), 663 (this article is quite flawed in undervaluing Pharisaic adherence to dietary laws and separation; cf. the work of the world s leading rabbinic scholar, Jacob Neusner, discussed in Saldarini s article). 5 Saldarini stresses that the Pharisees were a party among other Jewish parties that sought political influence. Their program was a non-violent but nationalistic response to foreign occupation: all Israel should distinguish itself by following the Pharisaic interpretation of the Jewish Law, which stressed ritual purity, tithes and other food laws, and Sabbath and festival observance. Anchor Bible Dictionary V 291. Rules concerning food, purity, and group practices are typical boundary-building mechanisms (300), excluding that which is foreign or strange (303). Jesus and his group mounted a major challenge to the Pharisaic way of life (294). Jesus thus created a new community outside Pharisee control and quite naturally provoked their protest and hostility (295). Cf. BARRETT, Paul, E.P. SANDERS, Paul and Palestinian Judaism. A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia 1977), is the most comprehensive study on the subject indicated by the title. He makes several important (though not necessarily infallible) points: 1) the Qumranites (at least) disprove the thesis that apocalyptism is at odds with legalism [the Pharisees were legalists, as Paul had been, though see fn. 2 above] (423); 2) following Davies, he believes that Paul can be defined as a rabbi who believed that the messiah had come in the person of Jesus, Christianity then being the fulfillment rather than the antithesis of Judaism; the all-important thing is to be in Christ (8-9) [so Pharisees such as Paul had nothing necessarily against accepting that the messiah had actually come]; 3) It seems to me to be useless to speculate on what form of messianic hope was known to Paul (on the basis of an analysis of Jewish apocalypses and other material) and to work out his theology by applying his hypothetical preconceived messianic theory to the fact that Jesus was the Messiah ( ); 4) as part of his conclusion: Paul presents an essentially different type of religiousness from any found in Palestinian Jewish literature. *** Paul s expectation of the imminent parousia of the Lord is in general to be explained as being in agreement with Palestinian Judaism, or at least some of it. Paul s expectation of the imminent end doubtless came from Christian tradition rather than directly from Judaism... The similarity between Paul s view and apocalypticism is general rather than detailed. Since the conventions of apocalypticism 2

3 theological perspective) that despairs of human remedy for this corrupted world. It was born in a time of great trial (e.g., the time of Daniel and the Maccabees, when Jews were in danger of extinction), and sought hope in the final intervention of God. This hope comes in the form of visions, revelations (which is what apocalypse means) of what is to occur, in fact, of what is really occurring already in the spiritual realm, namely, God s finally intervening decisively in human affairs in order to defeat evil and establish his kingdom (see Dan 7:9-28; 12:1-13), which has been revealed to the apocalyptic visionary. World history is divided into epochs; the apocalyptist believes he is in the final age, which is passing away to make room for God s new creation. God s enemies (mostly Gentiles, though bad Jews are included) will finally be defeated. This way of viewing the world was peaking at the time of Jesus and Paul. Jesus was an apocalyptist in his own way; he began as a follower of John the Baptist, who shares important features both of apocalyptic and of the Qumranites. He expected the coming of God s kingdom soon. 7 He expected the heavens and the earth to pass away (Mark 9:1; 13:31), though he did not set any of the time-tables so typical of apocalyptic (cf. Mark 13). But it is important to take note that the essence of Jesus message is that the awaited moment has finally come; everything that needed to occur for God s kingdom to arrive has taken place (Mark 1:15). Jesus proclaims the end of the rule of evil (he had an apocalyptic vision [same verb as used by Dan 7] of Satan falling out of heaven like lightning, Luke 10:18). Prophecy refers to him and is being fulfilled in his day (Luke 4:16-22). This is important for our understanding of the gospel (Jesus message and action) and of Christianity. Paul shared (or came to) this view that the end of the ages had arrived, 1 Cor 10:11, and that this world is passing away, 1 Cor 7:29, 31. He expects that the awaited return of the Lord will occur in his lifetime, 1 Thess 4:15, 17. Like an apocalyptist, Paul divides the ages of the world; Gal 3:19, 23-25; 4:4; 1 Cor 15:25; Rom 11:25. Christ has brought the definitive change, although full redemption (salvation) is yet to be realized, Rom 8: At the time Paul was thinking and writing this, there was an important group of legally super-observant Jews who also were apocalyptists, [time-tables, visions of beasts, etc.] had so little influence on him, the hypothesis might be put forward that before his conversion and call Paul was not especially apocalyptically oriented. This is one more reason for not supposing that Paul began with a set apocalyptic view and fitted Christ into it (543). At the end of the book, , after positing that Paul s dualism seems to owe as much to the apocalyptic theory of the two aeons as to the Hellenistic theory of the struggle between body and soul, Sanders opines that Paul combined conceptions from various world-views, and reiterates that The explanation for this is probably that Paul did not begin with a definite conception of a universal plight [such as bondage to sin or the Law or astrological deities] to which he sought a solution.... Man s plight, rather, is that he is not in Christ.... It appears that Paul s thought was not simply taken over from any one scheme preexisting in the ancient world.... These schemes were employed to describe the reverse of his soteriology [deriving their meaning from Paul s context, not from their own]... It is in the soteriological and Christological determination of his thought that Paul s uniqueness lies.... his view of the human plight was derived from his soteriology.... In his letters Paul appears as one who bases the explanations of his gospel, his theology, on the meaning of the death and resurrection of Jesus, not as one who has fitted the death and resurrection into a pre-existing scheme... So that what Paul says of the human situation and of the role of the Law in the first chapters of Romans is, according to Sanders, an a posteriori view derived from Paul s experience of salvation in Christ and need to explain what humanity (both Jews who had the Law and Gentiles who did not) was like before Christ. 7 The great Jewish scholar DAVID FLUSSER, who taught New Testament at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, wrote that Jesus is the only Jew of antiquity known to us who proclaimed not only that men were at the threshold of end-time but also that the new age of salvation had already begun, Jesus (Eng. Trans. New York 1969), 90. 3

4 the monks of Qumran, of Dead Sea Scrolls fame, stricter and more exclusivistic than even the Pharisees. 8 Paul would have certainly known of them. The early Christians, following Jesus and the Baptist, shared many features of this world-view, and Paul, after his apocalyptic vision on the road to Damascus, believed and accepted the Christian message. See BARRETT, Paul, 49. The Qumranites have left us a great library containing their works, including their particular interpretations of Scripture. Like Paul, they believed all the Scriptures (our Old Testament and more) referred to their days. They awaited the final battle between the sons of light (themselves) and the sons of darkness. This is a dualistic view of the world, divided into good and evil, the respective camps of God and Satan (see the Qumran-like passage in 2 Cor 6:14-16, whose Pauline authenticity is disputed; cf. Luke 16:8; John 12:35-36). What is interesting is the fact that the Qumranites have the same Hasidic (devoted-to-the-law) origins during the Maccabean period as Daniel s apocalyptic group and also the Pharisees, though the background of the Qumranites (or Essenes) is more Zadokite, and in the bitter internecine struggles of the time, they were 9 actually enemies of the Pharisees. Like the Qumranites and other Jews of his day, including such Hellenistic Jews as Philo of Alexandria, and many Hasidic Jews today but unlike Jesus Paul probably felt that strict observance of the Law would hasten the coming of the Messiah and God s final intervention (see, e.g., Mal 3:22). He boasts of his zeal for and strict compliance with the Law (Gal 1:14; Phil 3:5-6). But what happened to him? Paul s conversion. This zealous Jew persecuted (tried to destroy, Gal 1:13) the Christian Church, probably for flaunting the Law and blurring the strict lines of distinction based on separation and purity so crucial to Pharisaism. The Jewish grievance against Christians is probably accurately summed up in the accusation against Stephen in Acts 6: While Christians remained part of the synagogue, such unorthodox views and violations of the Law could be punished (irrespective of the doubtful historicity of Acts 8:1; 9:1-2). Had Jesus himself flaunted the Law? I believe he certainly flaunted at the very least halakah, the Pharisaic interpretation of what the Law required. Two examples will suffice. Jesus is extensively depicted in the gospels as violating the Pharisaic notion of Sabbath observance. Proper observance of the Sabbath was a matter of life and death (Exod 31:14-15). The other example regards meals with sinners and unobservant Jews. This violated the Pharisaic principle of extending priestly purity laws to all Israel. These are historically reliable examples. This means that for Paul, Jesus could not be the messiah; he was, and died as, a cursed man (Gal 3:13; cf. BARRETT, Paul, ). What caused Paul to change? We call it the experience on the road to Damascus. Paul encountered the risen Jesus in an apocalyptic vision (Gal 1:16) orchestrated by God the Father; cf. 1 Cor 15:8; 2 Cor 12:1-4?). It was a conversion in the sense of a total (or at least great) change in Paul s dearly-held outlook. It was not the adoption of a new religion. But Paul s Judaism exploded. His experience was fundamental and completely transformed him. Realizing that God had made Jesus Lord (cf. Phil 2:9-10; Rom 1:4), he recognized that this was God s definitive, eschatological act of salvation. For Paul, from that 8 HARMUT STEGEMANN, The Library of Qumran. On the Essenes, Qumran, John the Baptist, and Jesus (Eng. Trans. Grand Rapids Cambridge 1998), believes that the Essenes considered the Pharisees innovators (86), miscreants (128) and apostates (132), Hasidim whose name means Schismatics (150). Their practice of religion, in the Essene view, was too lax! (155). 9 Cf. COLLINS, The Apocalyptic Imagination, STEGEMANN, The Library of Qumran, adduces much evidence of the enmity between Pharisees and Essenes. 4

5 moment on the only thing that matters is to be with or in (the same preposition is often used for both words in Hebrew and in Greek) Christ (Phil 3:7:14; Gal 6:14-17). 10 Paul will now devote his considerable talent, energy and determination to giving birth to others in Christ (Gal 4:19; cf. his extreme anguish, Rom 9:1-5); see BARRETT, Paul, 50-51, 131. Paul was called to be the Apostle of (or to) the Gentiles. God s great revelation had a purpose: that Paul proclaim Jesus as the Son of God among the Gentiles (= non- Jews). We cannot be certain that this particular calling (vocation) was as simultaneous as Gal 1:16 implies. Damascus is connected with the Hellenists version of a Christianity that was free from the obligations of the law. 11 One way or the other (we shall try to explore this later), Paul saw his eschatological vocation as preaching the gospel (the good news about God s final world intervention in Jesus) to the ends of the earth (cf. Acts 13:47; Rom 10:18). Now, the issue of Law-observance cannot be a hindrance to this preaching (cf. 1 Cor 9:21; Acts 15:10; Gal 2:14; 5:1-6). 12 It is clear that Paul s attachment to the Law was definitely broken by 1) his experience of a risen Jesus made Lord who had been cursed by the Law; 2) his experience of salvation by grace without observance of the Law on the part of Gentiles (Gal 3:1-5; 4:4-7; cf. Acts 10:44-48; 11:15-18; 15:1-12). In other words, Gentiles need not become Jews in order to be saved. 13 The proof is in the reception of the wonder-working Spirit (Gal 3:5). So Paul also had a somewhat pragmatic motivation for abandoning the Law, or at least, for abandoning the view that its continued observance was part of God s eschatological salvation: the Gentiles were included in this salvation, and with the coming of Christ it was unnecessary in fact, an obstacle to require them to observe the Law. 14 The intricacies of why this was so (why the Law became an obstacle, beyond the remarks and citations given above), and how Hellenistic Judaism was prepared for a version of eschatological salvation in which observance of Torah need not include such things as circumcision, observance of the Sabbath and the purity and dietary laws, will 10 See also Rom 8:1; 12:5; 1 Cor 15:22; 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 1:22; 3:14, 26, 28; Phil 1:1; 4: KOESTER, Introduction to the New Testament. vol. two, 100. The Hellenists (there were various types and groups) to which Stephen belonged have a militant anti-temple (thus anti-cultic, including purity laws) theology; see the heated debate against other Hellenists in Acts 6:8-15. Stephen s speech in 7:2-54 is a theological history of Israel which culminates in a final act of rebellion: the building of the temple! Note that before he dies, Stephen has an apocalyptic vision of the Son of man standing at God s right hand. This is the particular group of Hellenists who flee to Antioch (and other places) in Acts 11:19-20, at first continuing to preach only to Jews. Some, however, begin to preach also to Greeks (non-jews), though the reading (and meaning, if we read Hellenists instead), are uncertain. But the logical meaning is that non-jews were preached to for the first time. See also STUHLMACHER, The Understanding of Christ, in Jews and Christians, Apocalyptic included despair of human self-capacity to please God. HENGEL, Judaism and Hellenism, 195, describing apocalypticism, states: If the coming of salvation was now no longer bound up with the obedience of the people, because a considerable number of the people had failed in a way that could no longer be made good, so that hardly anything more was to be expected from man s own action, in this desperate situation all hope had to be directed towards the imminent realization of God s saving plan. In the situation of crisis, the questionableness of human attempts to create for themselves the presuppositions of salvation were manifest. 13 It is important to note that Jewish tradition holds that the 613 commands of the Torah bind only Jews; Gentiles are bound only by the seven categories of the Noahic laws (cf. Gen 9:1-17; Acts 15:19-29). 14 As BARRETT, Paul, 14, points out, Paul began preaching in synagogues, the only place where he could find an audience familiar with the Scriptures and messianic prophecies. His greater success with Gentiles, and the closing of the door by Jews, may have stimulated his sense of divine vocation as apostle to the Gentiles. That his talent and energy was necessary for this arduous and revolutionary task goes without saying. Cf. BARRETT, Paul,

6 be discussed at a later point in this course. What remains to be briefly seen now is the scriptural basis for the inclusion of the Gentiles in God s final salvific plan. 15 Presumably Paul knew this basis, though he probably interpreted it differently, before his conversion. In any case, it became an important part of his message, and is foundational to his theology. I place you as a light to the Gentiles, so that my Salvation may reach to the end of the earth (Isa 49:6). Luke places this Suffering Servant quote in Paul and Barnabas s mouth in Acts 13: Luke, addressing a Gentile reader, mines Isaiah s universalistic passages for prophecies of the salvation of the Gentiles. There are indeed many prophetic passages that speak in some way of the participation of the Gentiles in End-Time salvation, e.g., Isa 66:18-19, 21; Zech 9:23; 14:16-19; Mal 1:11. But many of these texts are ambivalent; mostly (at least by the time they got into the hands of nervous editors) they give the Gentiles a subservient role in the eschaton (Isa 60:3, 10, 12, 14, 16; 66:20). But the religious submission of the Gentiles to YHWH, the one true God, and not their political submission to Israel, is the main theme taken up by Paul. He refers to it as the obedience of faith by the Gentiles (Rom 1:5; 15:18; 16:26), which is the same as having faith in the Good News, 10:16. Everything and everyone (including the Gentiles) must submit to Christ (2 Cor 10:5; cf. 1 Cor 15:24-28). God is God of all (Rom 3:29-30). In God s mysterious plan, Israel s unbelief in Jesus Christ worked to bring saving faith to the Gentiles (Rom 11:11); when the sum total of Gentiles submits to God, then that portion of Israel which did not believe will be saved, 11: Scripture had foretold this long ago: Gal 3:8, quoting Gen 12:3. Paul s 16 mission, which he considers a liturgy and a priestly service to the Gentiles (Rom 15:16), consists in making the Gentiles presentable to Christ as a sacrificial offering (cf. Rom 12:1). Thus will the Gentiles offer to God the sacrifice of praise, which is the fulfillment of God s promises to the Fathers (Rom 15:8-12). This labor is God s eschatological mission for the apostle Paul; see 2 Cor 5:14-21; BARRETT, Paul, 29. Concluding note. Paul s theology and soteriology is truly Christological and Christocentric. The decisive point for him is God s salvation in Jesus, the mystery of Christ (Eph 3:4), in whom everything else, including the Law, becomes relative. The most critical scholars knowledgeable about Judaism cannot account for Paul s thought simply on the basis of precedents: Paul s experience of the risen Lord Jesus was cataclysmic in the change wrought in him, and he brought into line with its implications his whole understanding of himself, the world, humanity, sin, grace and salvation, and even of that Law which had been so dear to him (Phil 3:5-10). It is important to note the essential and pivotal role of Christ in Paul s theology (one of the major theologies of the New Testament) in a time when some seek to relativize Christology in the interest of interreligious dialogue and understanding, which is important, but which cannot be based on a disavowal or undermining of anyone s fundamental beliefs. For Paul, All 17 was focused upon the one central figure of Christ. 15 We could likewise deal with the Scriptural basis for Paul s preaching in general; he is depicted in Acts 13:15, 27, 40; 24:14; 26:22, 27; 28:23 as arguing from Moses and the Prophets; he mentions Moses and the Prophets often in his letters. Here, however, we will limit ourselves to the important issue of the Gentiles inclusion in God s eschatological salvation, though this is necessarily related to what Paul believed the Scriptures said about Jesus the Christ. Cf. BARRETT, Paul, He views his call in terms of the prophet Jeremiah, truly a sending (whence apostle = one sent ) with world-wide scope; cf. Gal 1:15-16; 2 Cor 10:8; 13:10; Jer 1:4-10; BARRETT, Paul, BARRETT, Paul, 33. 6